This invention relates to an oil mist lubricator that can supply lubricating oil in the form of oil mist to frictional parts of machine elements that need lubrication such as bearings and gears and also can be used to supply cutting oil in between an article to be worked and a cutting tool.
A conventional oil-mist lubricator for supplying lubricating oil to frictional portions comprises an oil tank, a fixed displacement pump for sucking and discharging oil in the oil tank, and an atomizer for atomizing oil discharged from the fixed displacement pump into oil mist. It was adapted to select only small oil mist particles by free fall and supply them.
With this conventional oil-mist lubricator, under the pressure of discharged wind, lubricating oil having large particle diameters or liquid oil, which should not be discharged through the discharge port, tends to be discharged after flowing along the wall surface of the selecting portion. Thus oil mist is liquefied in the piping between the atomizer and the nozzle of spraying. Thus, an expected amount of oil mist was not sprayed at each lubricating point.
Also, since it was impossible to easily adjust the particle diameter of oil mist discharged, application was limited to lubrication of e.g. bearings. It can not be used for minute-amount cutting in which only oil mist having small particle diameters is needed in spite of the fact that the same system is employed.
An object of this invention is to provide an oil-mist lubricator that can stably supply oil mist uniform in particle diameter, and that can also be used for the supply of cutting oil in minute-amount cutting.
According to the invention, there is provided an oil-mist lubricator comprising an oil tank, a fixed displacement type pump for sucking and discharging oil in the oil tank, and an atomizer for turning the oil discharged from the fixed displacement pump into oil mist, characterized in that the lubricator further comprises a cyclone for separating only oil mist having a suitable particle diameter and discharging it under centrifugal force produced in the cyclone through a discharge port.
According to the invention, inside the cyclone, a flow-out preventive member is provided for preventing liquid oil from flowing out through the discharge port under wind pressure.
According to the invention, the cyclone is provided with a secondary air supply port for increasing the wind speed in the cyclone, and a throttle valve is provided in a secondary air supply port.